It’s getting colder up here in the northern hemisphere. Days are shorter. Apple cider is everywhere. School buses, those big yellow motarized bricks, are back on the road. The leaves aren’t changing here–this is NJ, we don’t get vibrant falls–but up in Vermont they’re getting cold nights and their usual ridiculous foliage (Vermont just shows off in the autumn, flaunting it’s loud sense of color and maple syrup). There’s always a part of me that listens for the Wapakoneta High School band, something I heard every fall for the first seventeen years of my life: down the alley, across Auglaize street, down the side street, across the river, past the swimming pool and there was the stadium (very small stadium) and the band practicing, faintly but insistent. (Ohio State has its famous “Script Ohio,” so we had the not nearly as famous “Wapakoneta Wiggling W” where each band member stood in place and wiggled like they were trying to get rid of a wedgie. Well, it was a small high school.) It’s funny how a season is always an amalgamation of things: what’s happening in nature (didn’t the days used to be longer?), what’s happening in the community (I grew up in Ohio so that was football), what’s happening in stores (temporary big box Halloween stores, OMG), all of it schmushing together to let you know that Change is happening, kick up your heartbeat, remind you that it’s a new season, time to start over again.

I love autumn. It makes me happy.

What made you happy this week?